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Pollster: New Hampshire push-polling law is ‘harassment’

Michael Delaney's enforcement on a polling law has drawn critics. | AP Photo

But Ayres said, “Our attorney advises us that we need to specify a campaign that is conducting the survey, and apparently in the attorney general office’s enforcement, they are going after people who named a campaign but failed to give a telephone number.”

Head said that if the candidate paying is identified at the end of the call, “then it’s not going to affect anything because people will have already given their answers.”

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Ayres acknowledged that identifying the candidate at the end of the call is “less onerous” than doing so upfront, but he said it still lets the caller and the person called know who is paying for the survey, “and that violates the way we conduct business.”

In surveys conducted by his own firm, Ayres said, “we don’t even let the interviewers know which candidate is paying for the survey. We don’t want to give them any hint.”

The second issue pollsters have with the law is its definition of a push poll.

The law defines a push poll as “calling voters on behalf of, in support of, or in opposition to any candidate for public office and asking questions relative to opposing candidates which state, imply, or convey information about the candidate’s character, status, or political stance or record.”

Ayres said that passage describes what polling firms do when they conduct legitimate research. A push poll, he said, is really a “negative persuasion” call, usually relatively brief and made to a large number of people, designed to “influence people’s opinions negatively about a candidate.”

Ayres said he is aware of a firm that could face a maximum $1.4 million in fines, or $1,000 per answered call, for violating the law as written.

But Head said $1,000 per call is the maximum penalty under the law and has never been levied.

Head noted that in a settlement reached in 2010 with Mountain West Research of Idaho, which push polled for U.S. Senate candidate Paul Hodes’s campaign against opponent Kelly Ayotte without making proper disclosures, the firm was fined $20,000 for making 529 allegedly illegal calls, which is a fine of about $38 per call — far below the maximum.

Head said that while his office “has been enforcing the statute for a long time,” until recently, it sent out cease-and-desist letters but they had little effect. As a result, the office decided to levy fines in the Mountain West and OnMessage cases.

In the middle of the issue is GOP New Hampshire state Rep. David Bates, chairman of the House Election Law Committee. Bates is concerned that he had to read about the apparent “uptick” in enforcement of the push-polling law.

As a result, Bates introduced HB 1673, which passed the House on March 7. The bill requires the attorney general to report to the state Legislature by Sept. 1, 2012, and every six months after that, “on the status of all complaints of alleged violations of election laws received.”

Bates said that without information, it is impossible for lawmakers to know whether there should be changes in election laws.

Regarding the push-polling controversy, he said, “If I had known about this, we might have been able to address it” prior to the presidential primary campaign.

John DiStaso writes the Granite Status column for the New Hampshire Union Leader. The New Hampshire Union Leader and POLITICO are partnering to cover the 2012 presidential race.

A push poll should id the person making the negative remark. the nh ag should take another look at this. it s ridiculous to listen to some dumb comments that are opinion based and you re expected to give an answer to this propagander.

I love how pollsters are whining about a completely reasonable law that requires partisan pollsters to actually identify who they are. This is not a free speech issue, these people are injecting themselves into your personal space (usually during dinner time with your family) without your consent.

In 2010, I received a call from a "national" polling company. After the first few questions, I interrupted the questioner and asked who he was doing the poll for. He insisted that it was a non-partisan, disinterested poll. After twenty minutes, the time it took for this ridiculous thing, he thanked me on behalf of Kelly Ayotte. Nice, huh?

I live in New Hampshire. I am still waiting for our attorney general to press charges on James O'Keefe and his little cronies for the repeated crime of voter fraud.